The Mental Health and Wellness of Correctional Officers in Canada: Programs and Practices

ABSTRACT

Correctional work includes dealing with numerous stressors that compromise mental health. Yet, correctional scholars have dedicated limited attention to assessing the mental health support available to correctional officers at work. Therefore, we explore how officers view mental health programs, especially the Employee Assistant Program (EAP) and the Critical Incident Stress Management Program (CISM). Our findings derive from 44 semi-structured interviews with officers from 15 federal correctional institutions in Canada. Most participants found the mental health programs available at their institutions “helpful.” However, they still regretted some of the program’s characteristics, providing insights into alterations that can increase the effectiveness of the mental health support provided to prison staff. Such alterations comprise changing the mental health approach within correctional services from reactive to proactive and expanding the availability of professionals specialized in correctional mental health within the existing programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health
• correctional officers
• peer-support
• programs
• EAP
• CISM
• debriefing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research supporting this article received funding from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (grants No. 440140, 411387, 411385, 422567), Correctional Services Canada, and the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers (UCCO-SACC-CSN).